An ultimate guide to healthiest Sugar Alternatives

How do you create a lot of fun with cooking? Maybe with new cookies or cakes recipes.

That is it! Cooking is one of the most impressive parts of our routine life that can easily help us have our favourite pastime. So, It is really delightful when you get the desirable, delicious results as you involve in more options for sweeteners or new ingredients of sugar alternatives to put in food or recipes.

Well, sugar has always been one of the most popular ingredients in our daily eating plan so far; It is sweet and makes anything taste amazing that when it comes to your taste, it can change your mood and sense.

But The truth is, unfortunately, this simple nutrition ingredient can come with some significant risks such as heart disease, diabetes, and weight gain.

Now, to know more about excessive sugar consumption consequences for getting your health back on track and develop an optimal healthy living, whether mental or physical health, this article is going to reveal the ugly sugar head, both in natural and artificial sweeteners types besides a view to different sugar substitutes nutrition.

Why do we need sugar?

It is clear that we are accustomed to the sweeter taste, and the lower-sugar items don’t appeal to us anymore. The fact is that glucose is necessary to protect our health, so the best way to get our desired sweet taste is from a natural source of sugar like stevia and monk fruit. They are great options to survive and improve our body needs and productivity during work time and activities.

On the other hand, most nutrition studies confirm that the best source of glucose intake exists in starch, protein, and fats that we consume.

7 Negative health effects of sugar

Eating every sweet meal very full and satisfied affects your health and performance; therefore, the better way to focus on eating healthy is being worried about what should be cutting out of our diet plans and what should be adding instead.

Table sugar has a variety of healthy alternatives that can minimise adverse health effects, but in general, to maintain proper health, it’s fine to consume sweeteners in appropriate amounts.

Based on the scientific theory, sugars are a simple form of carbohydrate that acts as an addictive drug; thus the maximum amount of added sugar you should intake daily is between 25 grams to 37.5 grams because of the negative contribution to health issues such as obesity, liver disorders, skin aging, and cognitive decline.

However, sometimes you might find yourself on special occasions, parties, and events, filled with magnificent visual sugar decoration, which tempts you to overeat in turn of the burst energy for a while. But keep in mind that it can bring you one of the biggest issues you are bound to put on so much weight.

For our health benefits, it is crucial to control the amount of sugar consumption as we get older. Here are several sugar health conditions:

1. As a warning sign filling up on high sugar intake leads to more energy, fluctuation in the ups and downs in the mood that interfere with the insulin hormone to produce more hunger and weight gain.
2. Proceed sugar like sucrose packed with poor nutrient high caloric material that is
   more likely to discharge of minerals from the body.
3. If you’re counting calories, every sweetener encourages your cells to store more fat and then obesity to have better health and nutrition.
4. Excessive sugar consumption can affect oral wellbeing performance such as liver disease, heart disease, and tooth decay.
5. Eating artificial sweeteners that are on the “no-no” list turns into diabetes that increases high blood triglyceride levels.
6. Sugar is a kind of drug that is heavily linked to dopamine; not only it can be addictive, but also it can make too much toxic glucose in the blood.
7. Table sugar intake increases heart disease risk for those who consumed 25% or more of their daily calories heart.

What foods contain the most sugar?

Throughout the modern lifestyle, sweet foods and beverages play a crucial role in making us tired, foggy, and sluggish because energy drinks and colas help to keep us more active and fresh at first but could have side effects on our bodies and brains health in the long run.

To limit and know which kinds of foods might stay you away from a healthy diet, you need to know the high food and drinks in sugar :

• Milkshake and chocolates
• Sugary drinks (Soda, red bull)
• Cake and candies 
• Fruits Juices
• Granola
• Tomato sauce (Ketchup )
• Peanuts butter and coffee
• Kinds of Jams

Healthy sugar alternatives

When it comes to our health, we mostly do not consider our brain health and only stick to body nutrition. Totally, we need to know more about food nutrition that improves our overall health, so it is also necessary to contribute healthy sugar alternatives consumption. In that case, your body will thank you for staying fit, well-being, beautiful, and anti-aging. 

To stop weight gain and feeling depressed, skip artificial sweeteners, and go through healthy natural sugar alternatives to make the most of health benefits, better mind, and mental performance.

What are the four types of sugar?

1/ Natural sweeteners include :

• Stevia: is a totally safe, natural sugar with no calories and any negative health effects, and decrease blood sugar as well as insulin levels
•  Agave nectar: provides much more fructose than plain sugar that can turn it into one of the unhealthiest sugar, which is associated with belly fat and liver fatty or liver disease.
• Coconut sugar: is an unrefined kind of sugar that comes from the coconut palm, which loaded with iron, zinc, calcium, and vitamins. It is a delicious high caloric nutrient that it should be limited to diabetics and overweight.

• Date paste: Another excellent sugar substitute is date paste put in natural sweetener category, packed in fibre, and extra nutrients that most sweeteners lack. It is the perfect whole food sweetener to replace sugar in recipes that promotes brain health and potential health benefits.
• Maple syrup: is one of the most nutrient natural sweetener provides calcium, potassium, iron, zinc, and manganese that fight against cancer, low on the glycemic index, and offers skincare.
• Brown sugar: The light brown sugar is another kind of sugar substitute that has the perfect amount of molasses to complete any sweet and savory recipe, includes slightly higher calcium, iron, and potassium contents
• Raw sugar: This fewer proceeds sugar extracted from the sugarcane plant that retains some of the molasses delivers no real health benefit, but in compression to white sugar, it a great replacement.
• Honey: is a noticeable healthiest sugar type that is rich in antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals act as a useful sugar-free medicine to boost health body such as improving cholesterol, heart health, and lower Triglycerides.
  Better to say is honey healthier than sugar? Honey is one of the most useful healthier substituting sugar intake that not only is less in the glycemic index but also known as sugar-free syrup can help to cure many diseases.
  A glass of mild water with spoonful honey is nutrient well enough to make a significant change on your body. It actually includes vitamin B & C, minerals, and antioxidants that are a great help to have glory skin, better digestion. In contrast, sugar consumption is associated with inflammation, also weak memory, and attention.  

Note: Natural sweeteners maintain more nutrients to develop proper health to keep you more alive and fresh, but they still are high in calories. Therefore they should be used no more than 1 to 2 teaspoons per day.

2/ Artificial sweeteners include:

• Sucralose 
• White sugar
• High fructose corn syrup
• Acesulfame potassium
• Yacon syrup

Artificial sweeteners are safe to eat as a sugar substitute to give our food or beverages a sweet taste because they have zero calories that your body can not break down.

Also, recent studies show that selecting sugar-free alternatives like artificially sweetened can cut down hunger and obesity. So considered a beneficial option for diabetics; however, some artificial sweeteners are prone to unpleasant symptoms, such as headaches, depression.

3/ Sugar alcohols include:

• Xylitol 
• Erythritol 
• Sorbitol
• Maltitol

Sugar alcohol’s taste is like sugar and known as one of the healthiest sugar alternatives that have been found in the modern diet as an excellent flavour. Also, it refers to the type of sweet carbohydrates found naturally or processed from other sugars.

So low-caloric and low harmful effects can help prevent weight loss and more health benefits.

4/ Fruit sweeteners include:

• Monk fruits extract
  Fruits drive from a natural healthy sugar alternative called fructose. Deliver nutrients, like fiber, along with other beneficial vitamins and minerals. A high-fruit diet minimizes the risk of cardiovascular disease, controlling diabetes, and helping with weight management.

What happens when you stop eating sugar for a month?

Leave on sugar amount more likely leads to a noticeable rounder stomach and efficient function of your brain and heart.

In addition, it has fantastic health effects in the balance of stable blood sugar levels promote the mental state, natural weight loss, and you’ll find yourself very satisfied using protein and vegetables instead. 

The last word

All in all, we can not remove sugar from our routine life. In some cases, we need it throughout our holidays eating or cookies recipes.

Well, as I mentioned above, there is an abundance of healthy sugar alternatives like honey, date paste, etc. This could be the best solution for daily consumption provided that use them in moderation.

According to Snelling, one main difference between added and naturally occurring sugars is the way the body breaks them down. In fact, fruits supply you with a natural sugar called fructose and table sugar with sucrose.

The sucrose that turns into glucose is quickly absorbed into your bloodstream can end up in a spike in blood glucose levels. So, to minimise the risk of unhealthy effects, cut down on added or table sugar and go with novel sweeteners.